WASHINGTON, Sep 10 (Alliance News): Iran’s capture of a US military underwater drone could give Tehran an opportunity to study and potentially reverse-engineer the technology, according to analysts, creating a setback for Washington and drone maker Anduril.
The captured vessel, a Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle, is designed for long-range surveillance and other undersea missions and belongs to a new generation of military drones capable of operating for extended periods with limited human intervention.
The US military and Anduril have played down the significance of the loss, saying the vehicle was an older model that malfunctioned.
The Pentagon said the defective drone did not collect sensitive data and was not equipped with classified sonar or radar systems.
Iran, however, has a history of examining and reproducing US military technology after capturing American drones.
In 2011, Iran captured an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth reconnaissance drone. Then-US President Barack Obama publicly asked Tehran to return the aircraft. Iran later claimed it had reverse-engineered the drone and unveiled domestically produced aircraft that appeared to draw heavily from its design.
The US Navy has also previously acted to prevent Iran from obtaining uncrewed maritime technology. In 2022, a US Navy patrol ship and an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter were deployed after an Iranian naval vessel attempted to tow away a Saildrone surface vessel in the Gulf.
Analysts said Iran was unlikely to gain a decisive military advantage from the captured Dive-LD, but the incident could still provide Tehran with a propaganda victory and technical information useful for developing its own unmanned systems.
Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran would likely use the incident to promote the capabilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and potentially improve its own designs.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, said Iranian engineers could reverse-engineer the drone’s mechanical systems, although its software contains built-in protections.
Iranian diplomatic missions have also used the incident to mock the United States.
The Iranian embassy in Ghana claimed on social media that its forces had recovered the submersible intact, while Iran’s embassy in Hyderabad joked about an “unboxing ceremony” by Iranian reverse engineers.
The incident has also exposed a contrast between US Navy and Anduril descriptions of the Dive-LD.
Navy officials described the vehicle as an older model that malfunctioned and was left “dead in the water” before being recovered by Iranian forces.
Anduril, meanwhile, has promoted the Dive-LD as a highly reliable large autonomous underwater vehicle capable of operating for up to 10 days in demanding conditions.
The Dive-LD also served as a testbed for development of Australia’s Ghost Shark large underwater drone.
Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Iran had demonstrated an ability to use such incidents to portray US forces as ineffective while reinforcing its own claim of control over the Strait of Hormuz.
The capture comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran and growing reliance by militaries on unmanned systems for surveillance, intelligence gathering and operations in dangerous maritime environments.
